Giving Up the Paracel and Spratly Islands: Another Betrayal by the Vietnamese Government

The islands of Hoang Sa and Truong Sa (Paracel and Spratly) are located east of Vietnam in the South China Sea (or Southeast Asia Sea) and have been disputed between the countries in that region for several decades. Over the past century, all the way up to 1974, the islands have been under Vietnamese control.

However, in early January of 1974, while the Republic of Vietnam was busy with the Communists in the North and the Americans in the South, the People’s Republic of China launched an invasion on the islands of the Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago. Unsuccessful at first, due to the strength of the Republic of Vietnam’s resistance, the Chinese returned with a bigger fighting force on the coming days and successfully took the islands of Hoang Sa.

It didn’t end there however. Fourteen years later, in 1988, the Chinese stage another attack. This time, the target was Truong Sa (the Spratly Islands), and instead of the South Vietnamese, it was against the Vietnamese Communists. The invasion was easy this time, since the Vietnamese Communists hardly put up a fight against the Chinese government. The soldiers were unarmed and unprepared for the Chinese attack. As a result, some portions of the Spratly islands also fell into the hands of the Chinese.

Today, the Chinese are still steadily trying to control both of the islands with little resistance from the Vietnamese government who seem content on surrendering the islands to the Beijing government. The Spratly Islands are partially occupied while the Paracels are completely occupied. Fortunately, the people of Vietnam are not afraid to stand up to China, even if the cowardly government is. But sadly, whenever the Vietnamese people voice the injustices of China’s invasion, the Vietnamese government immediately cracks down on them for fear of offending China.

The invasion of these islands by the government of China is another hot topic in Vietnam today, which is why the Vietnamese Communists Party try absolutely everything to silence the public from ever speaking of it. Despite their efforts however, the people of Vietnam will not sit idly by while their land is being taken away. Numerous demonstrations and protests have erupted in Vietnam against the Chinese invasion, all of them have been brutally crushed by the Vietnamese government. Bloggers in Vietnam who dare bring up this subject of Hoang Sa and Truong Sa are (yup, you guessed it!) arrested by the Communist police. The Vietnamese Communist Party are the corrupted puppets of the Beijing government, cruelly beating down on their own people but at the same time bowing down to the Chinese Communists. They are pathetic, plain and simple.